


Let's Not Be Sad

by whelksome



Category: Cucumber Quest
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/F, i guess???? idk, young lesbian girls in love are good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2018-07-22 22:56:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7457065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whelksome/pseuds/whelksome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So for now, whenever your hand twitches towards ones that are calloused from fencing lessons and smell of the local bakery, you give a sterile little push or pat to a shoulder or arm and don’t linger on the fabric of her sleeves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> young lesbian girls are good and so are peridot and almond. also i love my girlfriend
> 
> EDIT: i wrote this fifty thousand years ago but i was feeling those Lesbian(tm) feelings the other day and i gifted this 2 the world. this will have one more chapter and b happy. because girls being with girls deserve happy endings

A door slammed. “I hate school!”

“I’m sure you do.” Cordelia answered smoothly from her seat at the dining room table, looking up from her glass cup of maroon “adult juice.” Strange in and of itself, Peridot thought, that she was breaking it out so early, but the thought passed quickly when Cordelia asked her, “What happened today?”

“You know what!” Peridot bit out as she tossed her purple star strewn backpack petulantly near the sofa, the unofficially designated area for all backpacks and large handbags. She dropped into the seat across from Cordelia and let out an aggravated groan. “It’s her again.”

“Ah, yes, her.” Cordelia turned around and began rooting through the cupboard for something. Her back shook slightly as she did so; Peridot glanced suspiciously at her for a moment, wondering if she was laughing at her, than dismissed it as juice-induced hiccups. “Now what has she done today?”

“Just! The usual! She’s so, so full of herself, acting like I can’t, I can’t even defend myself, mocking my name-“

At this Cordelia abruptly frowned and turned around to ask in a more serious tone, “I thought she was one of the only people in your class who managed to pronounce your name correctly the first time through. Is she making fun of you now?”

“No! No not, exactly.” Peridot flushed-with rage of course!-and murmured, “she still pronounces it correctly. But she doesn’t need to go and fight other people for me!” She crossed her arms. “I can beat up people myself! I don’t need some stuck-up, cocky-I don’t need her to do that!”

Seeming to have given up looking for whatever she was trying to find in the cupboard, Cordelia returned to her seat and took a small sip from her glass while sliding a sly look at Peridot. “Oh yes definitely, of course. But, dear, maybe she was simply-“ Cordelia bit her lip and suppressed something that sounded suspiciously like a giggle, and her eyes crinkled a bit. “Perhaps she was just trying to help out a friend?”

Peridot, with her arms still crossed, suddenly went still, and then turned to gape at Cordelia. How could she suggest something so preposterous, so implausible? She hated Peridot! Which was just as well because Peridot hated her too! Hated her stupid pigtails and her smirk and the way her bangs swept just so on her forehead into that stupid curl and how she laughed so loudly and brightly that you could hear her from across the room. Most of all, Peridot hated how she always seemed to be laughing at Peridot, her eyes sparkling with some kind of mischief that made her feel funny inside just to look at her.

“Peridot, dear?”

“I.” Peridot stuttered. “She-she doesn’t want to be my friend! I-she hates me, Cordelia!” Ugh, wait, she sounded like she was whining, like some kind of baby. “She hates me!”

Cordelia’s face softened. Reaching across the table, she reached out to cup Peridot’s face gently. The elegant woman looked her small ward in the eyes and said, “Oh Peridot, she doesn’t hate you. Trust me, from what I’ve heard from you, it seems very, very unlikely.”

Peridot looked at her mistrustfully for a moment, then dropped her gaze, “Easy for you to say.”

“Yes, it is. So I guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself.” Squeezing Peridot’s cheeks so they puffed comically and patting them once before letting go, Cordelia smiled. “Now, do you want to help me finish off the fourteen batches of cookies Mr. Knight so kindly used our, “a grumble and an annoyed emphasis on ‘our’, “kitchen to bake?”

“Aw yeah! His cookies are the best!” Peridot immediately perked up.

“I don’t know why you’re so fond of him.” Cordelia muttered as she stood to steer the two of them towards the awaiting baked goods. “He’s insufferable.”

“You just don’t like him because of that one time with the rent money. Besides, he’s funny.”

“Is he?” Cordelia asked skeptically.

“Well not funny like, his jokes are funny. He’s just weird. It’s funny. Also one time he tried to get a cat down from a tree and it ended up jumping down because it was more scared of him than the fall.”

“Unsurprising.”

* * *

 

You’re fourteen now. The girl who used to annoy you when you were nine is now one of your best friends and the two of you revel in the playful banter that comprises most of your relationsh-friendship! Friendship.

You only wish it were a relationship.

You’re fourteen now and you realize you have a raging crush on the girl who used to annoy you.

You play it smooth though. Never let your banter get too fond or sappy and play pranks on her all the time. It’s not like you’ll never tell her! (Maybe you won’t ever tell her) It’s just that, well, there’s no need to spoil a good thing, and you two have definitely got a good thing right now. It’s no longer blatant antagonism (it never really was) and you feel you’ve settled into the roles. It’s unnecessary to upset that balance (even if you do sometimes wake up fuzzily from warm dreams that smell like almonds and smiles). So for now, whenever your hand twitches towards ones that are calloused from fencing lessons and smell of the local bakery, you give a sterile little push or pat to a shoulder or arm and don’t linger on the fabric of her sleeves.

Sometimes you’re just a little too slow in stopping yourself though and you get caught staring a little too long. Or you find your hand brushing a little too close to hers. Or you’re in the middle of hugging her or playfully draping yourself over her shoulders, the both of you laughing, and you blink and realize you don’t want to ever let go. Or you find she left a hairband at your place and you hesitantly put it on, telling yourself you just want to try it out, then wear it to sleep and wake up the next day the happiest and most embarrassed you’ve been in a while (you give it back that morning, but not in person. Just slip it into her locker with a note about how she forgot it at your house).

You don’t think about the wedding dream. (You think frequently about the wedding dream).

There are times (often when you’ve been thinking a lot about the wedding dream) that you try and convince yourself to…..oh god you’re going to say it, here you go, no turning back-ask her out. Ask her if she wants to be your girlfriend. Make a move. Pop the (dating) question. Oh you’re blushing just at the thought of it. You can usually take up to athirty seconds of considering it before you either panic or get too red-faced to think about it any longer and watch a couple episodes of Pumice to calm yourself down. Except sometimes that backfires because Pumice always reminds you of her. She’s so much like Pumice. Even the way she twirls her sword-oh you can’t bear it, it’s too much, you end up back to thinking about her and imagining getting ice cream with her, which you’ve done before, duh, because you’re best friends, but like, romantically. (After that particular night of spectacular failure, you spent hours awake just staring at the ceiling of your bedroom till Cordelia yelled at you to turn off the lights and go to bed young lady it’s a school night.) You woke up the next morning tired AND frustrated. Even worse, she noticed at school and gave you a little gift of the almond snacks she always brings on Tuesdays and Thursdays and a little note that said, “Wake up loser!! :P” You think you died that day.

For now though, you’re content with what you have. Maybe you’ll reach breaking point sometime in the future, but you’ll deal with it when it comes. So you go on playdates and knock on her door and text her pictures of funny pictures you find on the Internet and you don't think about what it would be like to get to call her girlfriend.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a Thursday when it happens.

Mind you, it wasn’t a particularly interesting Thursday. It was, in all actuality, one of the most average Thursdays that could have ever been. Peridot woke up slightly groggy but not too terrible. Breakfast had been one of the scones that Mr. Knight had baked up two nights before; they’re one of his staples, and easily one of Peridot’s favorites to eat. She remembers vaguely remembering that they taste a little sweeter than usual, but that was perfectly fine with her; she still doesn’t get why he doesn’t just dump the entire bag of sugar in the mix. Too much sugar her butt. Slinging on her backpack tiredly, she softly calls out a goodbye to Cordelia in case she’s awake (it’s kind of hit and miss with Cordelia; she makes an effort to get up in time to wave her goodbye, but Peridot knows that they’re both very much alike in that they are not. Morning people.) and neutrally calls Mr. Knight a coward in her head. She bets Almond would have let her put the entire bag of sugar in the scone mix. Hell, she bets even Cucumber would let her do that, but she thinks that’s mostly because he’s a huge pushover. 

The bus ride to school is fine.

Getting to her locker is fine.

She grabs her stuff from her locker and stuffs it into her backpack and waits patiently for Almond. 

Bantering with Almond is good. But also very much normal, as is the uptick in her heart rate when she sees her and the way her chest tightens uncomfortably for a tenth of a second before it forcibly relaxes.

Lunch is garbage. So, fine.

And the school day passes in the same way, not any different from every other droll day before it, with laughter and boredom and homework and a vocab quiz she forgot about. Peridot packs up her backpack and goes home. Dropping her bag somewhere past the doormat, she calls out a greeting and slumps down by the computer, where she’ll check her email and go on Youtube watching terrible videos about cats and teens being teens. She quietly checks to see if anybody’s watching and then opens a tab of the Punisher Pumice forum she’s an active participant of. She makes her daily contribution (about the weird out of characterness of Pumice in the last episode-like Pumice would ever like guava). She does some of her science homework, then shines her small but proud collection of precious stones. She eats another scone.   
She’s in the process of wondering if she should save the last scone for tomorrow’s breakfast or just say screw it and eat the last one when her phone buzzes. Checking it with a grin, she sends a text to [flower emoji, sword emoji]

how was fencing?

boooooringggg. >< we had to help some of the beginner classes with form and it was the DULLEST thing i have ever done. peri was i ever like that???????? :(((((( they dont know ANYTHING and all i want to do is spar for my next tournament >:((

Peridot rolls her eyes. Almond always gets like this whenever she has a tournament coming up, never mind that it was still two months away. As she keeps texting her though, she wonders if this is a particularly big tournament. Almond’s even more nervous and whiny than normal, as evidenced by the number of emoticons that end up being sent in the span of ten minutes. Frowning a little, she types out an encouraging message, bites her lip, then erases it and rewrites it. Then erases it and rewrites it. And rewrites it again. Adds something. Gets rid of it. Stares at the empty message for a couple seconds before typing out her message as fast as she possibly can and sending it just as quickly before she has a chance to agonize over it any longer.

you always kick their butts.  
I know youll be fine  
I mean, if you dont, then ill have to kick their butts instead!!! 

A pause.

thanks peri <3

Thankfully, Peridot is saved from her imminent death by cardiac arrest as she’s called for dinner. She texts a quick goodbye and hollers out a “Coming!” as she bounds towards the smell of pasta.

Later, after a full belly of tortellini and some garlic bread that Mr. Knight experimented with (he’s trying to branch out from sweet baked goods but the poor guy just might be destined to only bake sweets; the garlic bread was horrible) teeth brushed and pajamas on, Peridot opens her phone and starts her evening texts with Almond. It turns out to be one of their longer ones, the ones that leave her silently giggling into her pillow at 12 am and smiling brightly with the knowledge that no one can see how soft her eyes are as she reads messages from the girl with the long brown hair and the vibrant laugh. It’s nearing almost 2 am when she sleepily reads 

hey peri, hey peri

wat   
I have a questionnnn

I might have an answer(rrr)

wanna go on a date with me?

Peridot drops her phone on her face. 

She-she’s. Her heart. Is. Beating. Very fast. She shifts from where she physically jolted upwards on her bed to a more comfortable position. She. Oh my god. Oh my god. Ohmygod oh my god ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmyogdohmyog-

peri??  
hey uh. peri if you’re there can you like? give a sign. its ok if youre mad!! or if you dont want to haha  
just  
I hope youre not mad?  
and we can still definitely be friends if you want!!!!  
haha

She lunges to type, spelling mistakes everywhere from her desperation to answer.

Yesyesyesysyesyeys ohyjmgogd yeae no im not msd lets be friends burt also more   
Um  
id really relaly want ot go on a date with you  
sorry for all the typos

nono its fine!!!   
great!!!!  
Im  
really glad you said yes

me too  
I mean  
Im really glad you asked me

me too!!!!!!!

Peridot pauses between dying slowly from heatstroke (her cheeks have never been warmer) to pause. And musters up the courage to send one last thing-

She gets a new text from Almond.

<3  
She’s pretty sure she breaks something (on the phone or herself) trying to respond in kind as fast as humanly possible.

And later, when she no longer shakes at just their knees touching (“Dude we sit this close all the time”) she presses her face into silky dark hair that smells both fresh and nutty, hand clasped in a calloused one, breathes, and smiles. 

And laughs at the peck on her cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been a while but i promised id finish it so . its finished .


End file.
